By Uzor Odigbo
An erstwhile strong advocate for indigenous coach for the Super Eagles of Nigeria, former Chairman Gombe United Football Club, Hon. Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe has changed his mind, saying that no Indigenous coach can successfully manage the Super Eagles in this era.
Speaking on TVC breakfast sports programme, Gombe insisted that a National Team of Nigeria that is populated by over 99% players from the Diaspora cannot be successfully managed by an indigenous coach.
“Make no mistake, I am a strong advocate for an indigenous coach for our national team, but where you have over 99% of players in the diaspora in the team with almost zero per cent local players, how would a local coach succeed?”
Gombe, who is the chairman of the Gombe State Athletics Association also averred that countries such as Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal and Morocco that succeeded with indigenous coaches had in-built developmental framework that helped in their football and coaches development.
Gombe regretted that “There was no plans to transfer coaching developmental knowledge framework from Nigeria’s past indigenous coaches such as Willy Bazuaye, Tunde Disu, Kashimawo Laloko, Festus Onigbinde, Paul Hamilton, Stephen Keshi, Emmanuel Amuneke to the younger ones which was orchestrated by none functional Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) technical department and Football Coaches Association which I can vouch, only exist on Paper”.
Hon. Gara Gombe said if NFF technical department had good coaches development transition framework, Nigeria won’t be searching for Indegenous coaches to manage Nigeria National Team and indeed other junior teams.
He reiterated that “Two fundamental things are necessary in determining football development in a country, one is coordinated, sustainable, practicable coaching education framework, unfortunately, NFF and Football Coaches Association had no such plans to train coaches for National Teams,” Gombe said.
